419
businesses and associations have signed up to support a price on carbon

Policy Challenges and Lost Opportunities

July 2014
Climate change and the risk of inaction will impact our environment, economy and the Australian way of life. Australia is more vulnerable than most developed nations to the physical impacts of climate change. Furthermore our economy and lifestyle is emissions intensive with Australian having the highest per capita emissions amongst the top 20 global emitters. Australia’s long-term prosperity and resilience depend on national policies that address this fact, and which factor in carbon pricing and can catalyse private sector finance for clean technologies. Read Fact Sheet: Climate Impacts, Costs and Opportunities for Australia

What we aim to do

Bring together businesses wanting to demonstrate their support for a price on carbon pollution – and ultimately to start Australia’s shift to a low carbon economy by unlocking low carbon investment and cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Benefits of a carbon price

A price on carbon, with appropriate transitional arrangements for households and industry, and complementary support for the development and deployment of low carbon technology, is widely recognised as being the most efficient and effective way of reducing emissions to meet this target. A carbon price is also important to provide a long term signal for investors in early stage clean energy technologies – such as geothermal, wave, large scale solar – that there will be a strong and vibrant market for these technologies in the future. Investors need to know that funding the research, development and demonstration of these cutting edge technologies represents an acceptable risk.